Global Warming's "Smoking Gun"

These opening sentences to the AP story on global warming should be alarming:

Human-caused global warming is here — visible in the air, water and melting ice — and is destined to get much worse in the future, an authoritative global scientific report will warn next week.

"The smoking gun is definitely lying on the table as we speak," said top U.S. climate scientist Jerry Mahlman, who reviewed all 1,600 pages of the first segment of a giant four-part report. "The evidence ... is compelling."

Andrew Weaver, a Canadian climate scientist and study co-author, went even further: "This isn't a smoking gun; climate is a batallion of intergalactic smoking missiles."

Global warming is "happening now, it's very obvious," said Mahlman, a former director of NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab who lives in Boulder, Colo. "When you look at the temperature of the Earth, it's pretty much a no-brainer."

The report will be given to governments next week to review "word-by-word", then will be released to the public on Feb. 2. To read the entire story, go here.

The $10 question for Tuesday night's State of the Union Address: Will he or won't he? The smart money says The Decider will talk about conservation measures, increased usage of ethanol, and perhaps slightly tweaking existing CAFE standards, acting like this rhetorical boldness and leadership will save the world. The smarter money says the words "global climate change" won't even cross his lips. What do you predict?

Update: The Decider actually used the words "global climate change," but in no context except to conclude his discussion on "energy independence." His exact words: "America is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that will enable us to live our lives less dependent on oil. These technologies will help us become better stewards of the environment — and they will help us to confront the serious challenge of global climate change." Tepid applause before he immediately changed the subject. The Dems were probably stunned, the Repubs... also stunned, but for entirely different reasons. Everything else went as expected. Tepid.